That rotten egg smell I've heard so much about

[sboyer85]

I’ve used Wyeast Belgian Abbey II (1762) a few times not and have NEVER had even a HINT of what is coming out of the carboy this time … definite sulfury-egg smell on day 3, continuing into day 4. WHAT CAUSES THIS so I can prevent it next time, and WILL IT GO AWAY???. The whole houe stinks, the woman is hating me right now.

I know this isn’t normal cuz I’ve the Rochefort yeast a handful of times. The only difference I could see would be either (1) I didn’t make a starter this time, last minute brew day, and pitched the swollen smack pack into a 1.051 OG wort, measured … or (2) more trub than usual made its way into the fermenter, as I didn’t wait long enough after chilling to let things settle before pouring into carboy. Despite the smack pack swelling up quickly, fermentation got off to a kind of slow start.

Thanks for the help.

[pietro]

as with us - better ‘out’ than ‘in’.

I would light a candle when you are at home. Wouldn’t the flame chew up the sulfur?

As to the cause, I would say it is probably most likely (1), as those yeast are working a little harder.

What temp are you fermenting at?

[sboyer85]

The room is ~68F, so the beer temp is probably higher, as it’s rolling right now. Back in my days of first brewing, before I knew I needed to do starters, I directly pitched a vial of the WLP530 which is also from Rochefort and had no sulfur smell. That was why I was also leaning toward (2). The only other time I had the same smell was form a starter when I harvested yeast from a previous batch, and I did a sh**y job of thoroughly shaking the yeast off the trub chunks.

[pietro]

Do you always ferment at that temp? Seems very warm for an initial ferment temp for that yeast.

Either way, I think the sulfur will be blown off, so I wouldn’t worry about it. It might be a bit fusel-y though @ that temp.

[dmtaylo2]

Sulfur always disappears with age. Even if it had sulfur at kegging/bottling time, it will disappear completely in about 3 weeks. But it will probably be gone or mostly gone before then. No worries.

[sboyer85]

Awesome, thanks for the good news.

I don’t usually ferment at THAT particular temp, just whatever my house it at. I live in right by the ocean in Santa Cruz, CA and the temperature is pretty contant year round … inside my house at least.